Szymon Kapustka

Unit 30
LO2
Submission 2

Ofcom Research
The Office of Communications (Ofcom) is the government-approved regulatory and
competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries
of the UK. Ofcom has wide-ranging influences across the television, radio, telecoms
and postal sectors. It has a constitutional duty to represent the interests of citizens and
consumers by promoting competition and protecting the public from harmful or
offensive material. Ofcom has many codes in broadcasting but the codes that will
refer to my PSA advert are:

Section One: Protecting the Under-Eighteens

1.1. Material that might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development
of people under eighteen must not be broadcast. This code I will need to follow if I
want my PSA to air. Also, I will need to not include very shocking images that can
make harm to children watching this advert.
1.13. Dangerous behaviour, or the portrayal of dangerous behaviour, that is likely to
be easily imitable by children in a manner that is harmful:

Must not be featured in programmes made primarily for children unless there
is strong editorial justification;
Must not be broadcast before the watershed (in the case of television) or when
children are particularly likely to be listening (in the case of radio), unless
there is editorial justification.

This relates to mine PSA advert because it can affect young children if they see it. So
to avoid any harm I would have to show my advert at particular times and channels
that very young children would not see it.

Section Two: Harm and Offence

2.1 Generally accepted standards must be applied to the contents of television and
radio services so as to provide adequate protection for members of the public from the
inclusion in such services of harmful and/or offensive material.
2.5 Methods of suicide and self-harm must not be included in programmes except
where they are editorially justified and are also justified by the context.
This sections of the code will relate to my PSA because I will be presenting the dark
topic which is suicide and I must make sure that not any featured content causing any
harm to the viewers. If a company does not follow the codes, the regulator will punish
the company responsible for breaking the rules. This case study is showing the
consequences of not following to the regulators codes.